Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton talked about throwing a runner out at the plate in the eighth inning during Wednesday's 7-4 win over the Chicago White Sox and the team's rising confidence.
The Enquirer/Bobby Nightengale

When Billy Hamilton reaches base, he scores more often than anyone on his team, or in all of baseball.(Photo: Kareem Elgazzar)

It’s hard to number-ize Billy Hamilton. The analytics tribe gives it a shot, with inscrutable formulas featuring exotic abbreviations. I’ll see your wRC+ and raise you a wOBA. According to the analytics website fangraphs.com, figuring a player’s wRC+ is as easy as this:

Billy Hamilton is not a darling of Numbers Nation. He doesn’t get on base enough for a player who doesn’t hit home runs. He strikes out a ton, especially for a player whose success should depend on making contact. He has a woeful wOBA, to say nothing of a pitiable wRC+. Maybe they should call his a wRC-.

The numbers don’t lie, but their truth is incomplete.

It’s an issue now, as the Reds approach Trade Season. Contenders are kicking Scooter Gennett’s tires. Scouts are circling the right arm of Raisel Iglesias. Anthony DeSclafani has drawn interest. I wrote recently that the Reds should stand pat, with the obvious exception of Matt Harvey. Give this group a chance to grow together, at least the rest of this season. What the front office thinks it knows about the needs of this team now could be different by October.

Who could have predicted 17-6 in the past 23 games? Baseball’s great, big regular season is also its mystery and its intrigue. So…

What do the Reds do with Billy Hamilton?

I asked Reds assistant general manager Sam Grossman, who presides over the team’s analytics department, the best way to quantify Hamilton’s value as a hitter. Last week, I’d suggested Hamilton was underrated at the plate. Numbers Nation proceeded to hand me my hat. The Nation – at least the group that infects social media – is generally a smug and unpleasant clan. God help you if you don’t agree with them completely, all the time.

“He doesn’t get the credit he deserves as an offensive player,’’ Grossman said of Hamilton. An “offensive player,’’ it turns out, is separate and distinct from a “hitter.’’ It’s a subtle, important distinction.

“The baserunning, the steals-plus, the pressure he puts on pitchers that helps other hitters behind him,’’ Grossman explained. “His ability to take the extra base without making outs. That all helps the offense as a whole.’’

When Hamilton reaches base, then steals second base, he only requires one hit to score. As kids, we explained this phenomenon as, “Walk’s as good as a double.’’ Very few players in MLB can say this about themselves. On occasion, Hamilton scores without benefit of a hit, owing to steals, groundouts, flyouts, wild pitches etc.

“He makes other people better when he’s on the bases,’’ Grossman said. Hamilton distracts pitchers. He gets them out of rhythm. We’ve discussed this for years. What we haven’t highlighted is this:

When Hamilton reaches base, he scores more often than anyone on his team, or in all of baseball. The numbers through Wednesday:

Billy Hamilton: 44 runs on 86 hits and walks. He scores 51 percent of the time he reaches base.

Scott Schebler: 40 runs on 88 hits. 45 percent.

Scooter Gennett: 51 and 126. 40 percent.

Eugenio Suarez and Adam Duvall check in at 37 percent, Tucker Barnhart and Joey Votto, 29 percent, Jesse Winker 28 percent. Hamilton is also fourth on the team in runs scored. I wasn’t a math major, but I can say with some authority that in baseball, the team with the most runs wins.

If you figure in the fact that Hamilton isn’t plating himself a lot (three homers) and that he has batted ninth in the order in 66 games (and leadoff just 12) it’s even more telling.

No one in this dimension of time and space is putting Hamilton in the same run-producing sentence as Suarez, Votto and Gennett. Someone might suggest, though, that even with his current numbers, Hamilton is underrated as an offensive contributor and, combined with his Gold Glove-level defense, is better than a pinch runner/late-inning defensive replacement.

Before Numbers Nation whacks me with a spreadsheet…

I know Hamilton benefits from a great supporting cast that has averaged six runs a game for a month. But in the previous four years, the Reds ranked 13th, 12th, 8th and 8th in the NL in runs. Hamilton scored 41, 46, 48 and 45 percent of the time he reached. Comparable to now.

I know Hamilton’s on-base barely scrapes .300 and his almighty wRC+ is about 60, when 100 is average. I know what all the numbers say. I also watch the guy play every day. I don’t see a player who’s a consistent drag on the offense.

“As a hitter, it’s hard to make a case he’s not below average,’’ Grossman said. “But his ability to take extra bases without making outs, the intangibles when he’s on base… I’m not going to say it outweighs his (low) on-base percentage, but it’s clearly helping the team. That’s where the value is.’’